Quotes

Create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you,—will invite you to add something to the pleasure of others,—or to diminish something of their pains. And for every grain of enjoyment you sow in the bosom of another, you shall find a harvest in your own bosom,—while every sorrow which you pluck out from the thoughts and feelings of a fellow creature shall be replaced by beautiful flowers of peace and joy in the sanctuary of your soul.

Jeremy Bentham, Deontology: Together with a table of the springs of action and the article on utilitarianism, Oxford, 1983, p. xix

Identity does not emanate from consciousness but from structures of character that antedate and underpin our superficial, momentary thoughts, feelings, and volitions. Sylvia, Peter, Keith, Beverly, Aubrey, and Nicola will still be who they are no matter what they think or intend or attempt to do at any particular moment. When what one is is constituted by an entire body of lived experience, the relative importance of passing states of consciousness pales.

Raymond Carney and Leonard Quart, The films of Mike Leigh: embracing the world, Cambridge, UK ; New York, 2000, p. 18

[T]he addict himself has a special blind spot as far as the progress of his habit is concerned. He generally does not realize that he is getting a habit at all. He says there is no need to get a habit if you are careful and observe a few rules like shooting every other day. Actually, he does not observe these rules, but every extra shot is regarded as exceptional.

William S. Burroughs, Junky, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England ; New York, N.Y., U.S.A, 1977, p. 22

No puedo concebir ningún acuerdo o consentimiento a la pena. El funcionamiento selectivo y azaroso del sistema penal hace que el 95% de la población penal lo perciba como una ruleta y reflexione en la cárcel sobre la próxima oportunidad, que será la “buena”. Ignora que esa ruleta está cargada y que para él no habrá “buena”, porque no está entrenado para hacerlo “bien”. El poder selectivo punitivo le despierta y fomenta la vocación de jugador y el ladrón que puebla las “jaulas” es el eterno perdedor al que, al igual que los “fulleros”, alguna vez lo entusiasma con un “chance”.

I change my mind about the problem of free will every time I think about it, and therefore cannot offer any view with even moderate confidence; but my present opinion is that nothing that might be a solution has yet been described. This is not a case where there are several possible candidate solutions and we don’t know which is correct. It is a case where nothing believable has (to my knowledge) been proposed by anyone in the extensive public discussion of the subject.

Thomas Nagel, The view from nowhere, Oxford, 1986, p. 112

Property rights are not sacrosanct. They must bend to the needs and interests of human beings.

Jeffrey Paul and Robert Nozick (eds.), Reading Nozick: essays on Anarchy, state, and Utopia, Totowa, N.J, 1981, p. 378

To make sense of interpersonal compensation it is not necessary to invoke the silly idea of a social entity, thus establishing an analogy with intrapersonal compensation. All one needs is the belief, shared by most people, that it is better for each of 10 people to receive a benefit than for one person to receive it, worse for 10 people to be harmed than for one person to be similarly harmed, better for one person to benefit greatly than for another to benefit slightly, and so forth.

Jeffrey Paul and Robert Nozick (eds.), Reading Nozick: essays on Anarchy, state, and Utopia, Totowa, N.J, 1981, p. 197

It was never contended or conceited by a sound, orthodox utilitarian, that the lover should kiss his mistress with an eye to the common weal.

John Austin, The province of jurisprudence determined, London, 1832

In the past twenty-five years, many philosophers have been persuaded by John Rawls that the root problem is that utilitarianism ignores “the separateness of persons.” So widespread is this contention, that it has become a virtual mantra.

William H. Shaw, Contemporary ethics: taking account of utilitarianism, Malden, Mass, 1999, pp. 124-125

Next to the ridicule of denying an evident truth, is that of taking much pains to defend it; and no truth appears to me more evident, than that beasts are endow’d with thought and reason as well as men. The arguments are in this case so obvious, that they never escape the most stupid and ignorant.

David Hume, A treatise of human nature, Oxford, 1978

A lot of nonsense is talked nowadays about the “meaning” of music. Music indeed has a meaning, though it is not one that can be expressed in words.

Ralph Vaughan Williams, The making of music, Westport, Conn, 1955, p. 3

[R]eason can master our genes.

Peter Singer, The expanding circle: Ethics and sociobiology, Oxford, 1981, p. 131

Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something which no other species has ever aspired to.

Richard Dawkins, The selfish gene, Oxford, 2009, p. 3

Far from justifying principles that are shown to be “natural”, a biological explanation is often a way of debunking the lofty status of what seemed a self-evident moral law. We must think again about the reasons for accepting those principles for which a biological explanation can be given.

Peter Singer, The expanding circle: Ethics and sociobiology, Oxford, 1981, p. 71

He who was ready to sacrifice his life […] would often leave no offspring to inherit his noble nature.

Charles Darwin, The descent of man, Amherst, N.Y, 1871

Of a few years later we have these illuminating glimpses from Gabriel Pierné: [Debussy] was a gourmet, but not a gourmand. He loved good things to eat and the quantity mattered little. I remember very well how he used to delight in a cup of chocolate which my mother invited him to take at the Café Prévost, and how, at Bourbonneux’s [a famous pâtisserie], he used to choose some delicate little pastry from a case specially reserved for the produits de luxe, while his friends were more likely to be content with something more substantial. This poor boy, who had come from a most ordinary class of society, had in everything the taste of an aristocrat. He was particularly attracted to minute objects and delicate and sensitive things. My father had a beautifully bound set of Le Monde illustré. When Achille came to the house we used to look at the pictures with delight. He preferred those which took up little space and were surrounded by a huge margin.

Edward Lockspeiser, Debussy, London, 1936, p. 6

I confess that I’m an unabashed Old Leftist who never quite understood how deconstruction was supposed to help the working class. And I’m a stodgy old scientist who believes, naively, that there exists an external world, that there exist objective truths about that world, and that my job is to discover some of them.

Alan D. Sokal, Jean Bricmont, and Alan D. Sokal, Fashionable nonsense: postmodern intellectuals' abuse of science, New York, 1998, p. 269

Moderation! Moderation! […] What is moderation of principle, but a compromise between right and wrong; and attempt to find out some path of expediency, without going to the first principles of justice. Such attempts must always be delusive to the individual and fatal to mankind. If there is anything sacred, it is principle! Let every man investigate seriously and solemnly the truth and propriety of the principles he adopts, but having adopted, let him pursue them into practice: let him tread on the path which they dictate.

John Thelwall, The Tribune, 1795

J[ohn ]W[atkins]: “Karl, you are dishonest. You hate criticism.”

K[arl ]R[aimund ]P[opper]: “You are dishonest. Your statement refers to my state of mind; it is irrefutable. Only dishonest people raise irrefutable criticism.”

Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, and Matteo Motterlini, For and against method: including Lakatos's lectures on scientific method and the Lakatos-Feyerabend correspondence, Chicago, 1999, p. 189

He that, in the ordinary affairs of life, would admit of nothing but direct plain demonstration, would be sure of nothing in this world, but of perishing quickly.

John Locke, An essay concerning human understanding, Oxford, 1975, p. 11